22 Dec 2010

There were originally four wise men who set off to visit the baby Jesus, but one was left behind and relegated to the status of ‘stupid man’ after turning up on the morning of the trip wearing a silly hat. "I'm disappointed that I didn't get to go and that they didn't like my hat" he was recorded as saying.

Two

Joseph and Mary were told there was "no room in the inn", because they were both 11 feet tall and there was physically no room for them in there.

Three

Jesus was orignally named Bruce, but the name was later changed as Mary decided it wasn't holy-sounding enough.

Four

A lesser known miracle performed by Jesus (alongside turning water into wine and walking on water) occurred just before his crucification, where he turned 6 people into cheddar.

Five

Jesus was actually a lousy carpenter with many of the tables and chairs he made breaking after little use. After several rejection letters from the finest carpentry schools in the country he abandoned his dream and reluctantly took the job of being God instead.

Six

Jesus intended to return to Earth in the year 2000, but an error with the Jesus-arrivo machine prevented this, “this damn thing’s crashed again” came a heavenly voice from the sky.

Seven

The tradition of present buying at Christmas began in 1972 after a widely reported claim that Jesus had appeared to a man in supermarket. "What are you doing here Frank!?" asked Jesus, "Songs of Praise has just started and you're here staring at tuna, I'm not happy with this, not happy at all. Here take this video recorder and don't miss another episode. Right I'm off to do some earthquakes and tornadoes, bye". Presents have been an integral part of Christmas ever since.

An imagined future that takes current workplace H&S thinking to it's logical conclusion. Got to keep everyone nice and safe...

A Health and Safety Announcement

Following on from our comprehensive review of the significant perils and dangers posed by ladders, we have now turned our attention to the activity of walking, of which we have identified the following hazards:

You might trip and fall over while doing it.

We have therefore taken the very reasonable and sensible act of banning all walking in the building and car park areas for staff that haven’t completed ‘walking training’.

Walking training will be rolled out in Q1 2011 and will comprise of a 3 hour session in the auditorium where your walking technique will be evaluated. Until this time, please find alternative forms of locomotion to get around the building. Perhaps you could crawl?

21 Sep 2010

This picture is on the Pope’s official UK Visit website, it's probably suppose to make him look holy, but I like it cause it looks like he’s trying to reach the white orb thing but he can’t reach it. Stretch Popey your nearly there!

30 Aug 2010

A drunken night down the town with some mates, pretty standard stuff, nothing to brag about and why would we? It’s not like we do it with any of the other normalities of life. “Ah mate, I was just outside and there was water falling from the sky, I’m not lying, there was WATER coming out of the SKY! I don’t want to be rash, but I’m pretty sure it means I’m the new Jesus, do I look holy? I look really holy today don’t I? Should I get some sandals?”

Turns out though, a few people didn’t get the message - some problem with their email I expect, or maybe they're just hollow human beings, no probably the email thing. They think we need to know exactly how much they drank and exactly how ‘wasted’ they got, with alcohol talked about like it’s some top secret drink that only privileged individuals can get access to and we should all stare in awe of anyone who has some. “Oh yea, alcohol ey? Like that stuff other there? That stuff the homeless guy has in his brown paper bag, is that the stuff you’re talking about?”

The drink is the important thing to them, not the people they were with or where they went, just how much they drank. They say things like “we downed two bottles of wine before we even left the house!” “Oh yea, two bottles of wine was it? Can I shake your hand please? I expect you have a medal for this, no? Probably more likely a trophy? You could drink more alcohol out of the trophy now if you wanted and we could all watch and take notes. Is that ok? They’ll probably make a movie of your life soon, are they making it now? Am I in shot?”

So yea, how about a turn around, quiet night down the pub? Then how about: “Crazy night last night, I got absolutely slightly tipsy! Had 3 pints in less than 2 hours!.. although I left a bit of the third one, had to be up early in the morning, plus I got all distracted from the drinking by having a conversation with other humans, those damn humans getting in the way of me and the booze!”

26 Aug 2010

So somebody at work got Shingles recently. This led to two things for the rest of us: 'fear of getting shingles' and asking 'what is shingles?'. Paranoia ran high, especially for the guy who had been sitting next to her (on the left). So I sent out the following email to help clear up the confusion...

A definition of shingles from the Oxford English Dictionary.

Shingles (plural) [pron: shin-guls]: Shingles, more commonly know as the ‘pirate disease’, is a virus from the same family as chickenpox. The condition is highly contagious with research showing that people located to the left of someone carrying the virus are most at risk of infection, this is believed to be the origin of the popular phrase “a pirate to my left, a sailor to my right”. Symptoms include a strong desire to have a parrot sit on their shoulder which can lead to high levels of stress for the individual as parrots often prefer to fly away. In extreme cases infected individuals can be overcome with the urge to discover ‘treasure’, where they can be seen digging random holes in the pursuit of such treasure. A reported case in 1997 saw four individuals with shingles enter a supermarket car park with a JCB digger, but the police were able to restrain them before any damage was done.

23 Jul 2010

Is it just me or are we all reading from a script? I overhear conservations like this all the time; Person A: “You alright?”, Person B: “Yeah good thanks, how you doing?”, Person A: “Yeah not too bad”. We love to wheel out "not too bad", rather than actually thinking. Person A could of just slammed down to Earth after a failed skydive attempt, only to find himself rolling down a hillside straight into an open-top lorry carrying glue (it happens). He then struggles to lift himself up before jumping from the lorry onto the moving road below. Unfortunately, the momentum of the fall rolls him into a group of birds and they all become stuck (you don't think it happens? It definately happens). In a desperate effort to release themselves from the glue covered man, the birds aggressively flap their wings hoisting the man into the air. Several hours of flight later the glue finally weakens and the man is sent plummeting towards a lake. He breaks the surface with a huge splash grabbing the attention of a fisherman on the far bank who quickly wades in to drag the man to safety, “you alright!?” he asks. “Not too bad” replies the man.

Personally I’d like to see someone go off-script and just honestly answer the question. “You alright John?”. “Ah Jesus, not at all Mark, not at all. Feels like I might be dying a bit actually, like maybe just my leg is dying or something. Can that happen? Ah I dunno, but I do feel like I may not make it through the next hour. Do you think its alright to have a guitar shaped coffin..? How you doing anyway?” I mean what does “not too bad” even mean. It’s like we're saying “well obviously life is normally awful, but today it’s not too bad”. Seems a pretty negative view of things.

I also like it when people say “Have you seen the shops have got Christmas stuff in already!? It’s gets earlier every year doesn’t it!?”. No, no it does not. Please stop telling us this every year. I wonder if these people even believe the words they’re saying or whether their brains just automatically snap to the script like some kind of OCD robot, “Christmas tree in window, must tell people it’s there earlier than before, earlier than before, earlier than before!!”.

I’ll finish this with my own personal failure with the script. When I was at school my friends would use “alright?” as a greeting rather than “hey” or “hi”. So it would be totally normal for us to just say “alright?” to each other as we passed in the hall without anything else being uttered. This was our script, but turns out the world outside doesn’t really play ball with this. So when I passed a colleague the other day and replied to his “alright?” with a “alright!”, I got a look of utter confusion and horror which seemed to be saying “err what was that?? That doesn’t make sense, your line is: not too bad!”. Oops, can we go again?